I recently found Kind of Book via facebook. They're a site which gathers together ten Kindle books which are heavily discounted below their normal price; most are under a £1, and generally 2-3 will be free.
They are the devil.
Over the past few days I've been downloading most of the free ones and a few others that looked interesting. Yesterday, that included Play or Die (which I mentioned on Twitter, and which is still free at the time of writing) and Who is Sarah Lawson, which was discounted to 62p. Both sounded fascinating.
So far, I'm two thirds of the way through Who is Sarah Lawson. It's about a woman who returns home from work to find her house occupied by total strangers who insist that she doesn't live there, and that she is the husband's sister who suffers from memory loss ever since 'the accident'. I love the premise, and I'd love to see what Sophie Hannah would do with it.
The first third focuses on Rowena Shaw, the aforementioned woman. Her actions sometimes seem illogical to me, and she seems to miss several obvious things. Although she hires a private detective, and takes steps to prove her identity, she doesn't once consider having a DNA test done to discover whether or not Andy actually is her brother or not, which seems like a really obvious way to poke a hole in his story. At one point, she finds a bottle of Rowena Shaw's pills in her brother's bathroom. She calls her doctor, and though he is out of town, the receptionist comments on her changing her name from Rowena Shaw to Sarah Lawson. Instead of paying attention to the fact that here is somebody who acknowledges a suspicious connection between Rowena and Sarah, and who has records to prove it, Rowena simply hangs up and throws the bottle of pills away in disgust because the receptionist calls her Sarah, and she can't bring herself to use that name.
The second third focuses on Owen, Rowena's ex-fiance, focusing on a point before the books starts when he and Rowena were still together. His actions make no sense either. When the real Sarah Lawson begins stalking him and imagining that they're together, he doesn't tell Rowena about it. Even when he does, he doesn't tell her everything. He never goes to the police, either. Sure, at first, it's the kind of thing where you aren't quite sure. Like when you get an odd vibe about someone, but everything they do has a plausible explanation, and you sound really vain and paranoid when you try to explain it. But, it very quickly goes beyond that point, and still Owen doesn't do or say anything. I guess it's possible that someone would act that way in real life, but it still seems pretty implausible, and at this point the story doesn't seem to hang together. There also seem to be some strange discrepancies between Rowena and Owen's accounts, and that bugged me until it occured to me that maybe the 'Rowena' we've been hearing from actually is Sarah. If that does turn out to be the case, the book will make a whole lot more sense. K. J. Rabane won't have shot her story-telling load way too soon, the inaccuracies make sense, and even Rowena's thing with the receptionist will hang together. The detective not suggesting a DNA test will still seem a little off though. But we'll see.
They are the devil.
Over the past few days I've been downloading most of the free ones and a few others that looked interesting. Yesterday, that included Play or Die (which I mentioned on Twitter, and which is still free at the time of writing) and Who is Sarah Lawson, which was discounted to 62p. Both sounded fascinating.
So far, I'm two thirds of the way through Who is Sarah Lawson. It's about a woman who returns home from work to find her house occupied by total strangers who insist that she doesn't live there, and that she is the husband's sister who suffers from memory loss ever since 'the accident'. I love the premise, and I'd love to see what Sophie Hannah would do with it.
There may be spoilers for the first two thirds of Who is Sarah Lawson below.
The first third focuses on Rowena Shaw, the aforementioned woman. Her actions sometimes seem illogical to me, and she seems to miss several obvious things. Although she hires a private detective, and takes steps to prove her identity, she doesn't once consider having a DNA test done to discover whether or not Andy actually is her brother or not, which seems like a really obvious way to poke a hole in his story. At one point, she finds a bottle of Rowena Shaw's pills in her brother's bathroom. She calls her doctor, and though he is out of town, the receptionist comments on her changing her name from Rowena Shaw to Sarah Lawson. Instead of paying attention to the fact that here is somebody who acknowledges a suspicious connection between Rowena and Sarah, and who has records to prove it, Rowena simply hangs up and throws the bottle of pills away in disgust because the receptionist calls her Sarah, and she can't bring herself to use that name.
The second third focuses on Owen, Rowena's ex-fiance, focusing on a point before the books starts when he and Rowena were still together. His actions make no sense either. When the real Sarah Lawson begins stalking him and imagining that they're together, he doesn't tell Rowena about it. Even when he does, he doesn't tell her everything. He never goes to the police, either. Sure, at first, it's the kind of thing where you aren't quite sure. Like when you get an odd vibe about someone, but everything they do has a plausible explanation, and you sound really vain and paranoid when you try to explain it. But, it very quickly goes beyond that point, and still Owen doesn't do or say anything. I guess it's possible that someone would act that way in real life, but it still seems pretty implausible, and at this point the story doesn't seem to hang together. There also seem to be some strange discrepancies between Rowena and Owen's accounts, and that bugged me until it occured to me that maybe the 'Rowena' we've been hearing from actually is Sarah. If that does turn out to be the case, the book will make a whole lot more sense. K. J. Rabane won't have shot her story-telling load way too soon, the inaccuracies make sense, and even Rowena's thing with the receptionist will hang together. The detective not suggesting a DNA test will still seem a little off though. But we'll see.
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